Elon Musk Says World Needs More Oil and Gas As Bridge To Renewables 245
"In a speech today that is likely making some EV proponents' heads spin and implode, Musk made the argument that we need more oil and gas as we transition to alternative energy solutions," writes Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck. "He said this at the ONS Energy Conference being held in Norway this week." Bloomberg reports: The world needs more oil and gas now to deal with an energy shortage while pushing to transition to renewable supplies, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said. "At this time, we actually need more oil and gas, not less," Musk said Monday during an energy conference in Norway, adding that he's not someone to "demonize" the fossil fuels. At the same time, "we must have a clear path to a sustainable energy future."
Musk said the transition to a sustainable economy should be "as fast as possible," adding that ocean wind has "massive untapped potential" and that he's also a proponent of nuclear energy. "If you have a well-designed nuclear plant, you should not shut it down -- especially right now," Musk said. The EV maker's aim "has always been to accelerate sustainability," Musk said. "That's still our primary goal by far." "Realistically, I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble," Musk added. "One of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a sustainable economy. That will take some decades to complete."
Further reading: Germany To Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running In Policy U-Turn
Musk said the transition to a sustainable economy should be "as fast as possible," adding that ocean wind has "massive untapped potential" and that he's also a proponent of nuclear energy. "If you have a well-designed nuclear plant, you should not shut it down -- especially right now," Musk said. The EV maker's aim "has always been to accelerate sustainability," Musk said. "That's still our primary goal by far." "Realistically, I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble," Musk added. "One of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a sustainable economy. That will take some decades to complete."
Further reading: Germany To Keep Last Three Nuclear-Power Plants Running In Policy U-Turn
We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Insightful)
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
For the record the fastest deep decarbonization in world history involved nuclear(thanks France and Sweden). Germany failed to decarbonize after spending 500 billion euros on renewables.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Had they invested in nuclear energy with the same gusto of renewables, the drastic call for decarbonization would have probably never been needed.
Now we still have to do it, and with a helluva lot of CO2 already released to the atmosphere.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Insightful)
Had they invested in nuclear energy with the same gusto of renewables,
Except that isn't how it happened. The anti nuclear hippies where just anti nuclear. They didn't give two shits about renewables. All they cared about was making sure we where fucked on nuclear. They where perfectly happy for us to keep using fossil fuels.
Re: We need new nuclear. (Score:2)
Re: We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that it's the same old shitty designs who's main purpose is to create weapons grade plutonium and then power generation as a byproduct.
Really? Do you know how weapons grade plutonium is made? It takes exposing U-238 to a neutron flux for a short period of time, "short" as in weeks instead of the months or years that nuclear power plants typically cycle out the fuel. This is so the U-238 grabs a neutron to become U-239 which decays into Pu-239. The time has to be kept short because if left in too long then a lot of the Pu-239 becomes Pu-240, and Pu-240 is bad for bombs.
I thought there was a video about this from Illinois Energy Prof but I can't find it. I did find a couple interesting videos on nuclear power though. Here's links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
In the Soviet Union they built "dual use" reactors, reactors that could be used to make weapons grade material. They did this by not having a containment dome in the way of swapping out fuel rods. Outside of the Soviet Union the containment dome not only protects people from radiation in normal operation, and the spread of radioactive material if something goes wrong, but is critical to keeping the reactor, well, critical. The vessel is pressurized to keep the moderating water from boiling away, and the moderating effect of water is mentioned in the videos I linked to above. If the water boils away the reaction stops. The Soviets got around this issue of the water boiling away with a more expansive core design, and the details on how this works gets complicated quickly. But because they saved so much money on not building a dome the reactor was much cheaper in the end than what would be found outside the Soviet Union. It was dangerous as hell, but cheaper and able to be used to make weapons grade materials.
While it is certainly possible to create weapons grade material in civil nuclear power plants it would not be very efficient, and would prevent the plant from producing any electricity. The RBMK reactor that the Soviets built could potentially be used to produce power and weapons grade material at the same time. To make that work they had to dispense with safety features that nobody but the Soviets would have gone without.
Use of thorium as fuel would have made it nearly impossible to produce weapon grade material in a civil nuclear power plant. This didn't happen because Nixon wanted nuclear power in his home state of California, a place where uranium was well established as the preferred fuel. Experiments on thorium reactors was happening in places that was not California, so they were starved of funding.
If the main purpose of nuclear power plants was to produce weapon grade plutonium then our nuclear power plants would look a lot like those built in the Soviet Union, not how they look now. The reason why we still use uranium instead of the cheaper and more abundant thorium is because Nixon was from California rather than Tennessee.
Re: We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Informative)
You can make weapons-grade plutonium in a lot of reactors, but it's easiest in reactors that allow on-line refueling (i.e. you can swap fuel rods in and out while the reactor is generating power). This includes the Soviet RBMK, the UK AGR, and the Canadian CANDU (which India successfully used to breed plutonium for their first nuclear bombs). However, other designs have been used to generate power as well as breed plutonium for weapons, including the early MAGNOX reactors in the UK and France. They just ran them at low burnup rates and extracted the plutonium and remaining uranium by way of PUREX reprocessing.
Reactor designs that don't allow online refueling are favoured because they present less of a proliferation risk. If you need to shut down the reactor to refuel it, you don't want to change the fuel too often, so you'll want to run at high burnup rates where most of the Pu239 bred in the reactor is spent before the fuel is removed. The various BWR, PWR and VVER designes are like this. But there's no technical limitation that would prevent you from building a BWR or PWR that supports on-line refueling - you'd just need to incorporate the fueling machine into the upper part of the pressure vessel the way the AGR and RBMK do. Of course you'd want to put the fueling machine inside the secondary containment (as is the case for AGR and CANDU designs) rather than skipping the secondary containment like RBMK did.
The RBMK's issues were from a combination of factors. They were water-cooled and graphite-moderated (this was a design choice to allow them to run on unenriched uranium). Besides cooling, water has two major effects in a reactor: it acts as a moderator (converting fast neutrons to slow neutrons, allowing them to cause additional fission reactions), and it absorbs some proportion of the neutrons. The former increases the fission rate, while the latter reduces it. Now in a BWR, PWR or VVER, the water is acting as the moderator as well as the coolant. If the coolant boils inside the core forming a steam void, the moderation and neutron absorption will be reduced. The reduction in neutron moderation will outweigh the reduction neutron absorption, and the fission will slow, causing the reactor to cool. This negative feedback effect is called a negative void coefficient. Compare this to an RBMK: if water boils in the core forming a steam void, there will be a reduction in neutron absoption, but no significant reduction in moderation as moderation is primarily provided by graphite. This will cause the rate of fission to accelerate, causing the core to heat up, and boil more of the coolant. Steam is also less effective at removing heat, so the rate at which the core heats up, further accelerating the rate of steam void formation. This positive feedback effect is called a positive void coefficient. It's absolutely critical that coolant isn't allowed to boil in the core of an RBMK, or it will result in a runaway reaction leading to a steam explosion.
The US has a ban on using reactors with positive void coefficients for power generation for safety reasons. This means an RBMK would never have been allowed to be built in the US, but it also bans CANDU reactors. CANDU reactors have a small positive void coefficient, although nowhere near as severe as an RBMK. Once again, it comes back to design decisions stemming from a desire to allow use of unenriched uranium as fuel. CANDU reactors use light water for cooling in the fuel channels, surrounded by a larger vessel (the calandria) filled with heavy water for moderation. If the water in the cooling channels boils forming a steam void, the rate of fission will increase. However, the volume of cooling water is relatively small, so it doesn't provide much neutron absorption under normal circumstances anyway, and the calandria can be drained of heavy water very quickly to stop neutron moderation (unlike graphite blocks in a reactor core that you can't practically remove). In practice, the CANDU's positive void coefficient isn't a
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Also the RMBK was designed to run from the absolute minimal enrichment that could manage, for extra cheapness.
The containment dome goes outside the reactor components and captures explosions: it shouldn't have anything to do with the criticality of the reactor. The inner pressure vessel does that.
RBMK uses graphite rather than water to moderate, like the ACGR reactors in the UK. Those use a gas coolant, so no problem with it boiling off and altering the moderation properties.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a false flag operation by Big Oil. It is not totally astro turf. There were enough goofy ones to choose from. The Big Oil promoted the most ardent goofy anti nuclear hippies and drowned out the sensible ones.
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And another direct lie. There was no such investment into renewables. What got invested in was fossile fuels. If there had been a real, concerted, long-term investment into renewables, we would not have the problem. Because renewables actually give you a _lot_ more bang for the buck than nuclear.
There was a huge investment in renewables. Where do you think solar panels and lithium ion batteries came from? Who developed them, where did the science come from? The last week? Nope, it all started in the 70s. The problem began when those hippies convinced the bureaucrats that the technology is ready for use. It isn't. Batteries have nowhere near sufficient capacity, solar panels are not efficient enough and wind turbines need far too much maintenance. In other words, the technology is not ready yet. It
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Informative)
And another direct lie. There was no such investment into renewables. What got invested in was fossile fuels. If there had been a real, concerted, long-term investment into renewables, we would not have the problem. Because renewables actually give you a _lot_ more bang for the buck than nuclear.
There was a huge investment in renewables. Where do you think solar panels and lithium ion batteries came from?
Solar panels, yes; lithium ion batteries, no.
Today's solar panels are all the children of the old ERDA (later DOE) programs, starting with the old Research Applied to National Needs program ("RANN") in the old "Energy Crisis" years (anybody remember that?) and culminating in the Flat Plate Solar Array project (previously the Large Solar Array project, and before that the Large Silicon Solar Array (LSSA) project). If you like solar panels, thank the investment in the research by the U.S. government in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Lithium Ion battery technology, on the other hand, no. That technology was driven by cell phones and laptops.
(and... whether the investment in solar was "huge" or not depends on what you view as huge. It was indeed dwarfed by investment in coal, and in nuclear; both of which had both large research budgets (remember "clean coal"? Remember "synfuels" (made from coal)? The government spent a neat one billion dollars on a prototype synfuel plant... and mothballed it the day it opened because oil was cheap) . And also direct subsidies.)
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Informative)
And li batteries? Lets try NASA again. In the 80s and 90s for their tools. Yes, NASA tools used li-ion batteries. Now, it was cell phone production that made li-ion economical, just like the energy crisis combined with Chernobyl/hippies-far left idiots killing off Nuclear power, made solar/wind/etc economical.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:4, Funny)
There was a huge investment in renewables.
The world's total governmental subsidies on renewables are fucking pocket change compared to a year's subsidies for fossil fuels. You call it huge, why? It clearly is not in relation to other energy expenditures.
Batteries have nowhere near sufficient capacity
For what?
solar panels are not efficient enough
For what?
and wind turbines need far too much maintenance
For what?
In other words, the technology is not ready yet
We're literally using it right now. Solar plus battery is literally cheaper than coal right now. You are literally a liar right now.
Re: We need new nuclear. (Score:3)
Uhh...The US has been warning Europe, especially Germany, against increasing its reliance on Russian energy for a very long time. Even Europe's own intelligence services knew what game Russia was playing here. So what does Germany do? Build another pipeline to Russia and decommission its nuclear plants. Stop acting like only the US ever makes bad choices.
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Betto has it spot on. AE? America developed solar and it has been moving right along. Hydro has been here all along. Geothermal was getting lots of play even before you were born.
Nuclear power's growth was replaced by Coal, and then nat gas. Why? left-wing anti-science hysteria from ppl like you stopped Nuclear. TMI caused America to slow down, but it was Chernobyl combined with USSR not telling ppl anything that was going on or what happened until the late 90s/early 00s.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason the environmentalists won't allow nuclear is they do not trust the American people and it's government and businessmen to not dump toxic waste everywhere while risking meltdowns constantly.
This is a pretty dumb concern considering that there are 92 commercial reactors in the United States, we have had commercial nuclear power for decades, and not once has your nightmare scenario ever occurred. If you're going to be that cynical, then environmentalism itself doesn't make any sense—after all, why should we try to reduce carbon emissions when the horrible greedy Americans will just spew carbon anyway?
Even if your hypothetical disasters played out, a few nuclear meltdowns and nuclear waste leakages is preferable TO THE PLANET BECOMING UNINHABITABLE BECAUSE WE KEEP BURNING COAL. France is undeniable evidence that the anti-nuclear crowd has fucked us worse than the oil and gas crowd. They have 56 reactors running and they're the size of Texas.
It takes like 700 wind turbines to equal 1 nuclear power plant. That means if we converted all our nuclear power plants to wind turbines we would need 64,400 turbines. Nuclear power takes up much less space than either wind/solar, so it allows for greater land conservation. Should we continue to expand wind and solar? Sure. But it doesn't make sense to abandon nuclear.
Eliminating coal should be priority 1, 2, and 3 for anyone who cares about the environment. This means that not only should we subsidize nuclear power plants in the United States, we should subsidize nuclear power plants in other countries, too. We also need to prioritize making carbon-neutral airplanes, expanding the use of trains, and reducing urban sprawl. This is an all-hands-on-deck situation and we can't let our most capable sailor—nuclear—sit in the cabin.
Oh, and wind and solar are still cheaper per watt (Score:2)
Again, you've got way, way too many talking points lined up. Someone's feeding them to you.
Re: We need new nuclear. (Score:2)
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Fast breeder reactors do not have to be built to enrich. In fact they can be built to destroy nuclear material. There are two ways to get rid of nuclear weapon materials. The first is to explode it(let's not do that) or burn it in a fast reactor like an IFR or molten salt reactor.
Weapons != energy
I think nuclear is just a way (Score:2)
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Meanwhile wind and solar have both been shown to be capable of providing base load power.
I'm only going to address two points. First this point because it is not true. It is a fucking lie. No where on Earth has wind and solar provided baseload power. No where. Especially Seattle(which uses Hydro and Nuclear for baseload and has very little solar). Get your facts straight before you spout nonsense.
So why do so many people want nuclear?
Because nuclear is the only viable way to replace coal and gas. Due to solar and wind intermittency they can never replace coal or gas. In fact supporting renewables only is tantamount to foss
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Even if you think the technology is good, why would you want something so expensive? Wind and solar are far, far cheaper, and can be built in a couple of years or less. With nuclear it takes decades and the end result is extremely expensive power that you are forced to pay for because of the subsidies.
I want cheap, plentiful electricity. Nuclear can't deliver that, and even if it could by the time it's ready it will be too late to avoid the worst of climate change.
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The nuclear fanboys promote nuclear without having to be paid for two big reasons. One, they think it's neato, they are dazzled by the technology, newer must be better right? Two, the nuclear industry tells them they don't have to change their habits, and they believe anything they want to believe. It's a lot easier to sell fuckery than austerity. This is the true driving factor.
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For the record the fastest deep decarbonization in world history involved nuclear(thanks France and Sweden). Germany failed to decarbonize after spending 500 billion euros on renewables.
At the moment France is importing power from Germany [apnews.com] because half of French nuclear reactors are shut down due to maintenance and technical issues.
Nuclear is expensive, maintenance intensive, and it runs into problems during drought and heat waves because there is not enough cool water to cool the reactors.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Informative)
Again France at their temporary worst is better than Germany at its best. Significantly better. And France plans 14 new reactors.
Every time you call me a liar it is a confession.
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I've posted it before. Right now, France is importing power from Germany because half its reactors are down:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Nuclear is great, until there are droughts and heat waves and there is too little water or it is too hot to cool the reactors. And then there are the huge maintenance costs and technical issues to contend with. EDF, the French nuclear conglomerate, is practically bankrupt and can only stay afloat thanks to government intervention.
Nut sure I would tout the French nuclea
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And here is the article I forgot to include:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/0... [nytimes.com]
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You mean an asshole repeatedly calls me a liar(even though I have cited every statement to him on this thread or dozens of others), and consequently I claim he is projecting. Yes he is projecting. It is not circular. He projected every time he called me a liar.
You said:
Germany failed to decarbonize after spending 500 billion euros on renewables
That right there is an obvious lie. Germany produces 40% plus of its energy consumption with renewable sources so claiming that the money they spent on renewables did nothing to decarburise the country is nothing more than a bald faced lie and a stupid one at that. Don't even try to tell us that renewables have a massively bigger carbon footprint than nuclear. The life cycle carbon footprint of nuclear is around 4gCO2e/kWh, for solar it is 6gCO2e/kWh and wind is also has a footprint of 4gCO2e/kWh.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Informative)
Germany did fail to decarbonize. I do not know what school you went to, but 40% is an F. As in Fail.
Just for the record 89% of French electricity is clean with their nuclear, hydro, and renewables. France is way cleaner than Germany. They still have a way to go since an 89% is a B+.
If Germany spent the 500 billion euros they spent on renewables on Nuclear instead they would be 100% clean right now. Germany subsidizes renewables like crazy, and they have most the expensive electricity in Europe.
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Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Informative)
During 2021 France's peak times for energy consumption always produced less CO2 than Germany during its lowest consumption times. Overall, France produced roughly 1/8th as much CO2 as Germany [twitter.com]
lying
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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During 2021 France's peak times for energy consumption always produced less CO2 than Germany during its lowest consumption times.
Is that lifecycle generation, or just generation due to operation? We don't know, because you linked to a tweet instead of an article or report. What we do know from that tweet is that the argument is horseshit anyway. Read the fine print at the bottom where it shows that they made up their figures.
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Nope. It is not. Stop lying and look at some actual numbers. And here is a hint: Where do you think France is buying that electricity it so desperately needs?
France is way ahead of Europe and the west generally in green energy production and normally Europe's top exporter to boot. France's current energy issues stem from discovery of stress cracks and a campaign to check/repair similar issues across its fleet requiring highly unusual numbers of reactors to be offline concurrently.
Hard to understand how instance of temporary implementation issues translate into some kind of systematic conclusions about nuclear energy everywhere. France is a uniquely bad exampl
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:4, Informative)
Where do you think France is buying that electricity it so desperately needs?
France is a net exporter of electricity. Like seriously there are many things selective about the GP's comment, but if you're going to disprove it do so in a way that isn't proven wrong without even needing to click on a Google result.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair Germany does have a lot more manufacturing, though their GDP per capita is actually quite similar.
Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Germany has cut their CO2 emissions by about 40% since 1990.
Meanwhile, there's only one nuclear power plant under construction in all of mainland Europe (Flamanville Unit 3 in France) and it's way behind schedule and over budget.
So if Germany is proof that renewables can't work, then France is proof that nuclear is dead.
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Re:We need new nuclear. (Score:4, Informative)
No, there is only 1 power plant under construction in France.
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None of those are under construction.
Again, there's only one nuclear power plant under construction in all of mainland Europe, and it's way behind schedule and over budget.
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If Germany succeeded you would have a point
If Germany were finished, you would have a point.
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> If Germany succeeded you would have a point, but they failed. They are not even close to decarbonizing, and that is after spending 500 billion euros
TIL 50% is "not even close." Consider that their decabonizing goal is 2045 they seem to be making excellent progress. And where are you getting this 500 billion number from?
> You need to understand renewables(solar and wind) are intermittent.
So is nuclear. The difference is wind and solar are predictably intermittent. When you suddenly lose a GW of elec
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It's like saying they lost the race when it's only half done.
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Unfortunately, planting trees isn't going to get us more oil and gas for a very, very long time.
It isn't ever going to make new oil, or coal for that matter, because fungus now knows how to consume lignin. It could make new gas, though, as anaerobic decomposition of organic materials tends to produce methane. As you say, however, there's a very long wait involved.
So ... (Score:2)
Elon Musk Says World Needs More Oil and Gas ...
Guessing this means Tesla will be building vehicles with ICEs ?
Re:So ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be great if their plan had been to leapfrog straight from coal to solar or wind, because then Russia wouldn't have a say.
Why the UK couldn't or didn't make that jump I'm not totally clear on, although it's much harder there than it is in Texas or California with abundant sun and wind and undeveloped land.
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43% of the UK's electricity is from renewables ... and growing
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Guessing this means Tesla will be building vehicles with ICEs ?
He couldn't figure out any other way to get towing range out of cybertruck.
It’s been done (Score:2)
Behold, the V8 powered Tesla. https://youtu.be/x-6kHjF1U1E [youtu.be]
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Elon Musk Says World Needs More Oil and Gas ...
Guessing this means Tesla will be building vehicles with ICEs ?
No, it just is a necessary thing for him to say after having moving so far to the hard-right. It means he wants to get more political.
Keep your eye out for him to start a new PAC or something.
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The statement is true, and here you are complaining about the politics of it.
That means that politically you would prefer lies.
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The statement is simply literally utterly false. We can spend our effort in lots of different ways. The world needs more energy output, but it's cheaper to get it with renewables, so the idea that we need more fossil fuels is idiotic. It takes great expense to create more fossil fuel production, and what you wind up with is a polluting source of energy that contributes to the destruction of our life support system. Anyone promoting more of it is a dumbfuck at best, or more likely is willing to watch the wor
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Musk says a lot of things. Better listen to experts.
Re:So ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Elon Musk Says World Needs More Oil and Gas ...
Guessing this means Tesla will be building vehicles with ICEs ?
No, it means that Musk is building a bunch of stuff in Texas and wants to suck up to the dumb local politicians. They're dumb, so it will work.
We need the same amount (Score:2)
We don't need more, we just need to pump more from places that don't start with 'R' in the name for now and the can stop burning it off.
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I think that's a fair statement.
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We don't need more, we just need to pump more from places that don't start with 'R' in the name ...
Yep, and that includes 'Rabia.
That is obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
We should get to 100% revenwable, but without being fools about it. Let's be real, without an economy you don't have shit. If you cut off energy supply, the economy is doomed. Hell, we'd be doomed politically too because psychos will win the election because a stressed public won't think straight in who they are electing. We can't switch to solar overnight. First off we can't even build solar because you can't build a factory nowadays without all kinds of bogus environmental reviews and buy-ins. The quickest way to build a solar panel factory is with gasoline powered heavy machinery, and to run it you may need fossil fuel power. That's the environment we want to suddenly put the brakes on oil and gas? Don't be a fool. If the economy is doomed, the nation is doomed. Susceptible to invasion and colonization, it's the truth. Probably even deservedly. If there's anything nature and history has taught us, there's always something that wants to take what you have and if they can't enslave you, then wipe you out. It's a law of nature.
Re:That is obvious (Score:5, Informative)
If people can't put food on their plate today and a roof over their head tonight, they won't give a shit about the environment in the future. That is reality. People who have never had to struggle to pay the bills will not understand or want to understand this. Nothing will be done unless the people of the world want to do it. If you are starving them to death or throwing them out in the street in order to accomplish this, don't expect cooperation.
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This kind of nonsense is why a lot of people still don't buy into climate action.
Cowardly shills like you telling them they can do whatever they want instead of what makes sense? Yeah, I know.
Clowns like you making ridiculous claims like "they won't have a future", which you know to be untrue
Uh no. AGW threatens food production globally, it is leading to runaway methane release, it is causing runaway fire events which cause more extreme weather events which cause more fire events. We are caught in a whole series of feedback loops and they all spell doom. The hockey stick tells the story; the last time CO2 levels were this high, the planet literally would not have supported humanity. No
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You really don't understand do you? Don't you realize that without a functioning economy gangsters within the US and also countries like Russia and China would just take over? Do you think they would give a shit about climate change?? What's going to happen to your precious climate then?
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Do you believe that we'd be burning fossil fuels with no environmental controls on them? I recall things like catalytic converters, ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel, smoke stack "scrubbers", and more already exist. We don't put lead in gasoline any more, and people caught "rolling coal" end up getting punished for it.
We have all kinds of protections for the environment, and burning some coal because Russia cut off Europe from their natural gas supply isn't going to be the end of the world. It won't be ideal
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It will not matter if you have money for food if there is no food to eat.
Your problem is temporal. People will not suffer now (stop heating with gas without an alternative) for the sake of something that they *may* experience in 20-30 years (no food to eat).
That's fundamental human nature. Climate change is a very long term problem. Economic crisies, and energy security is an immediate and short term problem. People will literally do whatever they can to survive in the short term, and will do a shitload of things to retain their comfort.
Fuck man in many parts of the world peopl
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Jesus H. Christ... you idiots actually think we won't be able to produce food? How fucking hot do you think it's going to get?
Because I have actually produced food, and because I do not have my head totally up my ass like you always have proven that you do when you post, I look around and see what's going on. Crop failures are way, way up. There are lots of reasons, but several of the reasons are already due to AGW. (Some of them are due to gross failures of management encouraged by crony capitalism, but we don't have to discuss those now.) Farmers across the country have noted that a lot of crops are coming in late this year, but
Russia served cheap fossil opiods to Germany (Score:2)
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.. and you don't expect Germans to be that gullible
Before 1939 that might have been true. Since then we know that they are as easily led as anyone else, maybe more. Maybe pay a little more attention to world events there, sport.
We can’t allow common sense like this (Score:5, Insightful)
This is Canada's story (Score:4, Interesting)
Justin Trudeau cancelled a major gas pipeline to the east coast of Canada not quite 5 years ago that could have been near competion, including LNG facilities. One of the benefits people said, would be to allow Europe to not be so tied to Russia. But Trudeau is a virtue signalling identity politics kind of guy and he said he didn't care. As long as he makes Canada a virtue signalling environmental beacon nothing else matters. He doesn't understand that Canada only produces a couple of percent of the world's greenhouse gases, and the rest of the world still needs fossil fuel until we can all get off it. And it is better to get it from a politically clean source than from dictatorships and theocratic autocracies like Russia and Saudi Arabia. But then again, he's a failed arts student who never really held a full time job for any length of time. And the only reason he became Prime Minister is his father's name (former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau), a headlong race to the left by the Liberal Party trying to out-socialist the socialist New Democratic Party, and a Conservative Party of Canada that makes Trump and the Tea Party look like flower power hippies. There is no party that is centrist, so he is the best of the worst. Hardly anything to praise, especially when his dogma doesn't shift when world affairs shift.
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If they'd plan pipelines routes to respect all the shareholders, they'd be able to get more of them built. But they're not willing to do that; all the plans are greedy and contain absurd tradeoffs that are outside the prerogatives of the designers. So they often get blocked or cancelled. They're just so used to being evil, they can't comprehend that this might be costing them money, since it results in so many expensive failures.
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virtue signalling environmental beacon
Canada only produces a couple of percent of the world's greenhouse gases
Can you please stop using the word virtue signalling [sic] if you don't know what it means. Hint: When you actively do something or achieve something, or prevent someone else from doing something it's no longer "virtue signaling" as much as it is "action".
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virtue signalling environmental beacon
Canada only produces a couple of percent of the world's greenhouse gases
Can you please stop using the word virtue signalling [sic] if you don't know what it means. Hint: When you actively do something or achieve something, or prevent someone else from doing something it's no longer "virtue signaling" as much as it is "action".
You see, at this point, the term "virtue signalling" doesn't actually mean anything beyond "he said something I didn't like".
You're right that by the technical definition of the term he is misusing it, but this is what happens when a term is repeatedly misused (and overused), it loses it's meaning.
The thing about English that people who like to use faux-insults like "virtue signalling" or "SJW" continually fail to get is that context is everything in the English language. Even if you don't use a parti
oilfree cars (Score:2)
Why do we care ? (Score:2)
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Why do we care about Elon's opinion....about anything ?
I agree; I'd really like to hear less of his opinions.
He does have some pretty cool companies. But that doesn't make him an oracle.
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Because he is the world's leading spacefaring nation.
No comment on how Musk likes nuclear power? (Score:2)
Elon Musk is a supporter of nuclear power but this appears to get overlooked whenever his name comes up. Musk knows that his dream of retiring on Mars will not happen without nuclear power. He's a smart guy and has done the math. I suspect that as an owner of a company that makes solar panels that he can't say too much in favor of nuclear power, that's just bad business. I have to wonder if he's regretting his investment in solar power right now.
Musk is not the typical kind of environmentalist. He beli
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Also, by his own admission, we cannot accept anything Musk says at face value. He often has some scheme or ulterior motive or personal prejudice informing his public pronouncements. He's one of those, "I was only joking!" when you know he really meant it kind of people.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers .... (Score:2)
I don't often disagree with EM, but I do here. (Score:2)
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It really could be that simple. I've studied psycho- & socio-linguistics at masters level, this is a well-studied & understood phenomenon.
Make invading countries less profitable (Score:2)
If we had a more spread out, and more robust, supply of oil and gas then it would be less justifiable to blow up countries so as to steal theirs. Ultimately, having nuclear, solar, and so on, will really help curb the aspirations of the MIC, in all nations, and make it easier for the populace of those nations to order them to stand down.
But until then, there are still several nations who are defying America and its allies by sitting on top of "their" oil and gas.
Norway. (Score:2)
Sure. (Score:4, Funny)
At the end of the day... (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, he's not an idiot. He may say stupid things every once in a while (more often than not on Twitter), but anyone that can fog a mirror should be able to see that this will be a decade+ long transition, and if we stop using fossil fuels immediately without adequate replacement generation of energy, then stuff that we really need stops working. Like health care. And banking. And transportation. And heating / cooling while dealing with a more extreme climate.
We really should have started working on this a long time ago. But that can't be changed, so let's change what we can and start working really hard on it right now and hope like hell we're not too late to stave off the really bad shit that's predicted from doing nothing.
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At the end of the day, he's not an idiot.
I think it says something that your initial reaction was to defend Musk as "not an idiot" even though the OP didn't accuse him of being one.
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When it comes to what is needed to continue to feed the world and keep a roof over everyone's head, I'd rather listen to the ideas of a person who can create multibillion dollar empires from scratch than you.
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Ah, yes. The cult of greed and money. You are willing to listen to _exactly_ the wrong person there.
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Then again, when you make your mother sleep in the garage
Isn't it great taking clickbait headlines out of context?
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I think it is common that rich people have big fancy garages, with showers and stuff, so it is pretty normal to locate some guest quarters there. Especially if family is visiting and have to hide your mistresses in the guest house.
Norway? [Re:Let the acceleration begin] (Score:2)
While this is all fine and good, maybe he doesn't realize the amount of land which will go underwater in Norway as the Greenland ice melts. [marketwatch.com]
Norway?!? Why in the world would you say Norway in particular?
Have you ever been to Norway? Ten inches of sea level rise won't make much difference; Norway coasts are steep hills. Are you thinking of Denmark, maybe? Denmark is pretty flat, I could see that they'd worry about sea level rise.
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You mean the laws of thermodynamics?
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A few minutes on wikipedia and some back of the envelope math requiring no greater training than high school physics will tell you EVs can only replace about a quarter to a half of ice cars' capabilities.
I'd be fascinated to see that analysis (and to see the assumptions in that analysis). My back of the envelope calc says that EVs could easily replace 80% of cars, and with some effort 90%. The last 10% gets hard.
...oh, wait, I just saw your username. Right wing nut job. No, I don't need to see more blathering from nut jobs (not nut jobs on either side of the idiot spectrum, right or left).
Blowing smoke [Re: No shit greentards] (Score:2)
"Only 10% is hard, therefore 90% is easy, therefore 90% of cars can be replaced by EVs". *You* didn't say that.
Correct.
But given that my powers of inference are limited to inference, and not cracking open people's heads to directly inspect the bit patterns within,
Sorry, you have things backwards. YOU were the one asserting that a back of the envelope calculation would show that EVs can only replace about a quarter to a half of ice cars, not me. And YOU were the one saying that it required "no greater training than high school physics" to do that calculation.
You are the one with a burden of proof.
I notice that you didn't even try to support that assertion. I conclude you can't; you were just blowing smoke out of your ass.
Since you already told me that you
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Jesus, triggered much? Maybe understand the relevance of a guy who's primary company produces EVs to ween the world off oil and gas saying that the world needs oil and gas, and then you'll understand why this story is not only on Slashdot, but also one of the most heavily discussed stories on here.
We get it, you hate Musk, maybe just keep scrolling. All your anger isn't good for your mental health man.
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